14 DAY TRIAL // Anonymous hacktivists involved in Operation Albuquerque, the campaign initiated after Albuquerque Police Department (APD) officers shot and killed a homeless camper, have published a new statement with a list of demands.
“We are here in solidarity with the Albuquerque's citizens and to help bring justice that is long overdue. Members of the Albuquerque community, families of APD victims, and community organizations formulated the following fourteen demands for Albuquerque City Council and Albuquerque Police Department,” the hackers said in a statement published on YouTube.
“We call upon you to hold the appropriate authorities accountable, informing them that they must incorporate these demands into the US DOJ's comprehensive plan for APD'S sustainable reform.”
The hacktivists want the US Department of Justice to take over the APD to prevent further abuses, they demand “authentic and verified citizen oversight of APD,” the immediate arrest of the officers involved in the killing of the homeless man James Boyd, the termination of the Police chief, and the indictment of all officers who have violated citizen rights.
They also demand the “demilitarization of ADP,” an increase of funding for social services, an investigation into the ADP’s hiring practices, that the access of ADP officers to deadly weapons be “dramatically reduced,” the introduction of community-based policing to enhance the relationships between authorities and citizens, and an evaluation of all police officers to see if they’re mentally fit to carry weapons.
The list of demands comes just as US Marshals shot a man on the run in southwest Albuquerque. This is the third shooting in the past few weeks, but in this case, the suspect wasn’t killed.
The attention of America turned to Albuquerque after the shooting of Boyd. To make matters worse, a second man was killed by APD officers shortly after. Both are controversial cases that are being investigated by the Department of Justice.
So far, hacktivists have launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against the websites of the APD and the City of Albuquerque. Albuquerque officials knew that the city’s websites would be targeted by Anonymous hackers and claimed to have taken measures. However, the websites were disrupted for hours over the weekend.
Twitter and Facebook pages were shut down as a precaution.
The initiators of the OpAlbuquerque campaign are planning a Twitter storm for today, April 2.
Check out the video statement they’ve published on YouTube. A full transcript is available on Pastebin.
